WotC Vecna Eve of Ruin: Everything You Need To Know

WotC has posted a 19-minute video telling you 'everything you need to know' about Vecna: Eve Of Ruin.

• Starts at 10th level, goes to 20th.
• Classic villains and setting, famous characters, D&D's legacy.
• Vecna wants to become the supreme being of the multiverse.
• Vecna is a god of secrets and secrets and the power of secrets are a theme throughout the book.
• A mechanical subsystem for using the power of secrets during combat.
• Going back to Ravenloft, the Nine Hells, places where 5th Edition has been in the last 10 years.
• It would be a fun 'meta experience' for players to visit locations they remember lore about.
• Finding pieces of the Rod of Seven Parts, pieces throughout the multiverse.
• Each piece in one of seven distinct planes or settings.
• Allustriel Silverhand has noticed something is wrong, puts call out to Tasha and Mordenkainen, who come to her sanctum in Sigil.
• The (10th level) PCs are fated to confront Vecna.
• Lord Soth and Strahd show up. Tiamat is mentioned but doesn't appear 'on screen'.
• Twists, turns, spoilers.
• It's a 'love letter to D&D'.

 

[TravDoc42]

Spyder fiends, too!!

 

[TravDoc42]

I also wonder if this is supposed to be a beast of chaos, in some way?

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Is that changing canon or just fixing an error?

Those are not mutually exclusive.

Back in the days of 3E, the designers didn't think the map changes were errors. But those changes turned out to be not as popular as they had hoped (despite the style of the map being pretty). They did it again with 4E with the Spellplague retconning Aberi and Toril as twin worlds that overlapped and swapped some lands.

I believe the 5E designers wanted to go back to as close to the original as possible, while still acknowledging all the stories that occurred over the last 120 years. So they decided they couldn't treat those choices as book errors, and rather acknowledge the changes of the past as canon, and use the 5E Sundering as an in-world reason to revert the world back to the original map.

It's very easy to say AO let those 3E/4E changes happen as a test, and if it didn't work out, just alter reality back to the original vision. As a reality warp, most people might not be aware of some of the changes, but some may experience a "Mandela" effect that things used to be different.

Either way, the current map is now closer to the original map. But people can use whichever maps they prefer.

I'd be curious about what "Abeir" would look like as a world, being ruled by the Primordials rather than the Gods.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

It literally says in SCAG, page 18:

"Early in 1487, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions abounded for months, as if the whole world was convulsing. Rumors spread of the chasms caused by the Spellplague suddenly vanishing, and stories circulated of known destinations being further away, as if the world had quietly added miles of wilderness between them."

So, no, it didn't occur outside the story in game design - the world, in-universe, did shrink and expand. As ridiculous as you might think it to be, the world, canonically and literally, did resize itself 1487 DR.

AO's fantasy world of Toril does not need to follow the rules of nonmagical plate tectonics. It can just be changed, and the earthquakes and volcanoes don't have to be cataclysmic. They can just be used as a klaxon to let the world know that changes happened, and the new generations can go back to exploring, re-discovering, and re-mapping the world, post-Sundering. Lots of adventure to be had!

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I wonder what these beasts are? Those ones in the bottom right look like barlguras to me, but the big ones, I have no idea!
View attachment 348980

Is the blue one an artistic rendition of a Goristro? No clue about Five-Eyes (Could be Six-Eyes if the eyes are intended to be symmetrical the farthest eye is on the other side of the skull.) Cool design though.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

One of the worst results of treating the game rules as if they represent the fiction on a 1:1 basis is that it makes magic in D&D worlds "easy" -- pretty much the opposite of what you probably want if you are telling stories about lich-king would be Gods.

Magic in play is reliable as a convenience and for game balance. It does not mean it has to be simple, reliable or safe in the fiction.

Easy immortality has been a problem in my historical headcanon.

In my home campaign, the world had been screwed over and dominated by nigh-immortal rulers of the Old World Order. As an act of balance, there was a cosmic change that caused the lifespans of all "humanoids" to become capped at 120 years. Even elves and other traditionally long-lived races.

Potions of longevity don't make you live longer, only reduce the "effective age" of one's body. Drink enough over time and you'll still die at 120 even if you look and feel like a healthy 30-year old.

If someone wants to live longer than 120 years, they have to become something other than a humanoid (which is extremely difficult, and you don't get to keep being yourself if you do.) The most accessible change is to become undead. This is why becoming a vampire or a lich is still sought by some. Most people see that as cheating death in ways they can't, and therefore want those monsters dead. (Benevolent undead aren't a thing. They are either willingly evil, or have lost their minds due to their need to consume sentient life.)

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

It is obviously the capstone of the first decade of 5E adventures, WotC's "Infinity War" for their MCU D&D edition.

I think this is a fair comparison. One might consider all of 5E to be the D&D Storyline Universe to be equivalent to the "MCU". Tasha's and MoM might be considered to have the "Civil War"-level impact, teasing the D&D Multiverse Storyline (D&DMS) which opens up new worlds and concepts. 2024 would be the "Infinity War/Endgame"-level storybeat.

There will be future stories in the D&DMS, and we can only hope that later phases land better than the last couple years.

 

[pukunui]

I'd be curious about what "Abeir" would look like as a world, being ruled by the Primordials rather than the Gods.

Yes! I would love an Abeir setting / adventure book.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Looks like Miska is getting a cool mini

Miska is straight up terrifying. The over-wide mouths of the wolfheads, that his humanoid torso has to keep on chains to direct and control... even though they are attached to its own body. Miska the Obyrith looks way scarier than Demogorgon.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I run narrative games and use xp. I am old school and when temple of elemental evil said 1-8 it meant it would take the PVs from first to eight. When Fate of Istus said it had adventures for first to eighth it meant you had to fill in the gaps between adventures. Alternately, you could milestone FoI.
Shadow of the Dragon Queen does not have narrative space to fill the gaps, nor does it have enough xp to take you to 10th as advertised. It only works if you milestone. This is a ripoff and false advertising. They know darn well it is because we all knew the difference back in the day and so did TSR.

If it works with Milestone, and the book tells you to do milestone.... then it isn't false advertising that it doesn't work in a way that it was not intended to be used.